Decorative Arts

Man, who knew a baby would take up so much time? Definitely not updating this space as much as I would like. But between taking care of NEB, being sick, and helping campaign for the midterms (if you live in the US, you should make sure you are registered to vote, ASAP), I haven't found the time.

In fact, I've only been doing a bit of crafting here and there. I am almost finished with my lace shawl. No, I did not get it in for judging at the state fair. In fact, I have three more rows to go before I can start weaving in ends and blocking. But it is going to be beautiful, and I hope the intended recipient loves it!

Speaking of the state fair, I didn't do as well this year as in previous years. I think that is because more people are submitting - so I don't have any complaints! My entrelac scarf didn't place (lots of competition in the "scarf" category), and my lace prayer shawl got third for the category of handspun shawls. It also got a presidential ribbon though, so someone liked how it looked.

Other than the lace shawl, I've worked on a couple of quick projects in the last month or two. Both of them would fall into the category of "decorations," I guess, which is not something I usually dabble in.

The first project was for the Jewish holiday of sukkot. Most of the details of the holiday don't matter, except that we build a hut (sukkah), usually with cloth walls, and branches for the roof. It's traditional to decorate the sukkah, either by hanging harvest products from the ceiling, or making garlands.

Last year I attempted to make popcorn strings. They were... ok. But they were dried out by the end of the holiday, and they didn't look too good after getting rained on. This year I thought I would put my fiber arts skills to good use and make garlands out of yarn.

I used a technique called finger knitting. Basically, you treat your fingers as a knitting jenny/knitting loom. There isn't much variety in the stitching, but you can make a long chain in whatever color suits your fancy. And it is quick, and doesn't require any tools except the yarn itself. When I taught knitting at a day camp, they would send me bunks of campers who would have 45 minutes to learn how to do something with yarn. And I would usually teach them finger knitting. Their finished products, depending on how long they were, could be bracelets, necklaces, belts, or jump ropes.

Me, hand knitting a garland for the sukkah

Anyhow, I wanted nice long chains that I could hang up in my 8 foot cube of a sukkah. It was a great way to use up yarn that I wasn't too fond of, particularly stuff that I thought was too loud. Nothing is too loud when hung from the ceiling outside.

I ended up with three long chains. The first was a pale yellow yarn paired with a fall-colored variegated yarn that was supposedly one of the color pallets from World of Warcraft (I don't play, so I can't attest either way).

WoW yarn used in garland #1

 The other two were other loud, bulky yarns that have been sitting in my stash forever. I'm pretty sure I have posted about them before, in my post on ugly yarns. The pink yarn was paired up with a black sparkly yarn that is nice, but a bit scratchy for clothing.

Unknown ugly pink/blue/orange yarn

Black sparkles yarn

Any how, all three garlands looked great hanging up, and I should be able to reuse them next year. My husband suggests that I add one more each year. We'll see how long that works out. It is a great way to use up yarn.

Garlands hanging from the roof of the sukkah (view looking up from below)

Garland at entrance

The second decorative art project is for little NEB's Halloween costume. He is going as an acorn, and I wanted some oak leaves as accessories. Ravelry is amazing. I just typed in a search for oak leaf patterns and a few came up. I ended up making a pattern by Frankie Brown that was pretty perfect.

Knitted oak leaves for costume, in brown and red

I made them on size-9 needles, with two yarns held together, so they came out bigger than the pattern (which is on size 6). The larger one is red and light brown, and the smaller one is dark brown and the same light brown. The plan is to tie them on as an arm band.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll write again before 2019.